A voice-based application that lets people ask questions by speaking in their natural language and hearing the spoken answers. Although personal assistants operate in tablets as well as desktop computers, they have caused the smartphone to become an incredibly useful electronic companion. No matter where you are, you can ask just about anything that is public knowledge and get an answer.

Also called an "intelligent personal assistant" and "virtual assistant," Apple's Siri popularized the concept in 2011. Siri was followed by Google Voice Search in Android devices and Cortana in Windows Phone.

Personal assistants cannot only answer questions, they can make phone calls, calendar appointments and reminders and set alarms. The more information kept in the phone, the more personalized the results. Personal assistants are the first embodiment of artificial intelligence used on a daily basis by hundreds of millions of people (see AI).

Heavy Lifting in the Cloud
The personal assistant is a cloud-based application that relies on elaborate software in the datacenter to come up with the answers sent back to the mobile device. Over time, the personal assistant becomes more useful as new versions of the software interact with more applications in the device. See AI, Siri, Google Voice Search, Cortana and S Voice.

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